Songs of War
by The Narrator
Summary: The reasons for war, the hopes, the fears, captured in the songs and voices of those who fought and died.  An anthology of the songs of the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation from the Century War.
1. Song 01: I Go to the Mountains

One thing I find interesting about military history are the songs that come about because of war; some of them demonize the enemy, some of them lament fallen comrades, some think wistfully of home, some glorify the fight, some yearn for the end of conflict (and some do all at the same time).

As a supplement to my current post-war project, **_-Danger, Deceit-_**, I'm periodically going to post a collection of "war songs" to get a sense of what each side thought they were fighting for.

As for the identity of "The Archivist"... that would be in the second-to-last chapter of **_Tales of the Spirit World:_ Fall of the Blue Spirit**.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Songs of War: Earth -01-<strong>_

* * *

><p><strong>I Go to the Mountains<strong>

[Tune: _Song of the Bamboo-cutter_]  
>[Origin: Earth Kingdom, circa Avatar Aang (disappearance of)]<p>

* * *

><p>I go to the mountains<br>to fight the invader  
>from across the sea.<p>

Farewell, my plum flower  
>Farewell, my plum flower<br>and weep not for me.

I go to the mountains  
>not afraid of the fire,<br>stone beneath my feet.

Farewell, my jade-eyed girl  
>Farewell, my jade-eyed girl<br>your kisses are sweet.

I go to the mountains  
>Come with me, my comrades<br>side-by-side, we'll fight.

Farewell, my beloved  
>Farewell, my beloved<br>and kiss me goodbye.

* * *

><p>- <em>Later Adaptation<em> -

* * *

><p>We go to the mountains<br>to push the invader  
>back into the sea.<p>

Farewell, my plum flower  
>Farewell, my plum flower<br>and weep not for me.

We go to the mountains  
>unafraid of their fire,<br>stone beneath our feet.

Farewell, my jade-eyed girl  
>Farewell, my jade-eyed girl<br>your kisses are sweet.

We go to the mountains  
>but should our comrades fall,<br>leave us there, side-by-side.

Farewell, my beloved  
>Farewell, my beloved<br>and kiss me goodbye.

* * *

><p><strong>Archivist's Note:<strong> The original _Song of the Bamboo-cutter_ predates Man's written word. The tune itself has been adapted to hundreds of songs all over the Earth Kingdom over the centuries, to include songs for marching into battle. The first three verses and accompanying refrains were likely composed among peasant soldiers in the civil wars predating the latest Century War. The latter version, often sung as additional verses to the elder, can most definitely be traced to the Nan Mountains partisans. These partisans, at the cost of many lives, successfully resisted the Fire Nation invasion, and curbed the Fire Army's western encroachment in the southern half of the Continent.

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: Inspiration for the song (and tune) is a World War II Italian partisan song, _Bella Ciao_ [version sung by Lidija Percan]


	2. Song 02: Ballad of the Mountain Tribe

_**Songs of War: Earth -02-**_

* * *

><p><strong>The Ballad of the Mountain Tribe<strong>

(**Alternate Titles:** _Song of the Hundred Sh__ā__n-m__í__n_; _Ode for the Battle of Y__ā__n L__ǒ__u_)  
>[Style:<em>Yueh-fu<em>]  
>[Author: Lao Bai]<br>[Origin: Earth Kingdom, circa Avatar Aang (disappearance of)]

* * *

><p>At turn of dawn, 'pon Xū Mí Road,<br>dust-ground under iron wheels,  
>to Kǒu Pass their iron ranks thunder.<br>Lesser men showed their heels,  
>yet bravely stand, Shān-mín's men.<br>The mountain may shiver,  
>yet stand five-score men of Shān-mín, a wall,<br>to turn back that iron river.

From the western shore swept the horde.  
>Seized in ravening Fire,<br>Léifēng-shan and proud Te-ming fell.  
>The skull-faced host ne'er paused:<br>Jìngtǔ-shen razed and Huā-dū burned.  
>West and south, the sky bled red,<br>and stained the shoulders of ice-bound Yān Lǒu  
>as northward to Wò Ráo they turned.<p>

Who would answer Wò Ráo's plea?  
>Behind jade walls sleeps our king,<br>To the West, the Avatar has fled, [一]  
>Gui swells with misfortun'd spring,<br>Captives of frail walls, children weep.  
>None shall come to Wò Ráo's aid.<br>Then! From the east - Shān-mín's men hurrying,  
>O'er the flood, to Wò Ráo's side!<p>

Hearts, fear-beaten, now beat with hope,  
>and clamor the bronze watch-bell.<br>Yet, how few, those men of Shān-mín,  
>who now join the battle.<br>What hundred men can stem that dread tide?  
>With grim salute, they march<br>Ascending apace to Yān Lǒu's jagged crown,  
>quick'ning o'er Duàn-qiáo's arch.<p>

Towering, the walls of Kǒu Pass,  
>winter's ice still clinging.<br>On iron feet nears the beast,  
>the stones with warning ringing.<br>"The mountain cries out in torment,"  
>proclaims Shān-mín's captain,<br>"by iron and Fire profaned. We answer her:  
>'No further will they gain!'"<p>

Raise your stone shield, brace your shoulder -  
>War-drums shudder the bone.<br>On, on they come, the skull-faced host!  
>Shān-mín's men charge as one,<br>shattering that iron river,  
>rank upon rank cast down!<br>And yet: on, on, they come, the skull-faced host!  
>Trampling o'er their own.<p>

Flames leap high o'er Yān Lǒu's crown  
>cast by wretched machine.<br>Unnatur'd Fire, their polluted art [二]  
>breached the wall of Shān-mín!<br>Oh, costly though, each Shān-mín death:  
>a score for every man.<br>Yet thousand-score swell that iron river;  
>no longer can they stand.<p>

Consumed in Fire, Shān-mín men fall,  
>each inch of stone drowned in blood.<br>Aback Kǒu Pass falls their proud captain,  
>Onward, the iron flood!<br>There is none but Death waiting here,  
>Shān-mín's men do not turn.<br>In silence agreed, the men of Shān-mín,  
>their own lives spurn.<p>

A handful yet stand to raise the wall,  
>too few against that tide.<br>The horde claims the pass - Shān-mín's men  
>in seem'd fear, draw aside.<br>Lunging forward, victorious,  
>the iron beast falters.<br>Silent fall their war drums and machines,  
>as Yān Lǒu's crown shatters.<p>

Consumed in Fire, Yān Lǒu consumes  
>in roaring stone and ice -<br>the Mountain devours the Dragon.  
>Victr'y won at so high a price,<br>that one man to Wò Ráo returns,  
>speaks but one entreaty:<br>"Ne'er forget what Shān-mín gave for Wò Ráo's sake:  
>our lives, rendered freely."<p>

With Shān-mín blood and Shān-mín lives  
>was our homeland ransomed.<br>Can we dare forget what they gave,  
>their valor ever fathom?<br>Give none to them, who slew Shān-mín,  
>who trample their honored graves – [三]<br>else we can ne'er from the dust our faces raise,  
>nothing more than wretched slaves.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Archivist's Notes:<strong> _The Ballad of the Mountain Tribe _is unique among songs originating in this most recent Century War, in that its author is well known, despite having produced a limited body of work, and that it related events that the author, at least indirectly, personally witnessed.

Lao Bai, the scion of the wealthy and influential merchant clan from the Huai Province in the northwest Earth Kingdom, was nine years old years old when Fire Lord Sozin began his conquest of what the Fire Nation would appropriate as the Luo Territory. The city of Wò Ráo, situated at the base of Yān Lǒu, commanded the intersection of crossroads that linked the western Luo peninsula with the rest of Huai Province. The most important of these, insofar as the Fire Army was concerned, was the ancient Xū Mí highway, constructed under the direction of King Yùdi in the Era of Earth Tribes. The Kǒu Pass was the only feasible eastward route for the Fire Army to take and, after a two-year nearly unbroken string of victories in the peninsula, no city was willing to send troops to help Wò Ráo block the pass.

But, as Lao Bai dramatically recounts, a group of warriors from the Shān-mín tribe of the Tong-bai Mountains northeast of Wò Ráo rallied to the pass at very nearly the last minute. The relations between the nomadic Shān-mín and the rural and urban population of Huai had by this time reached a state of mutual non-aggression, but hardly one of mutual guarantees of protection against enemies.

See: _A Study of the Curious Customs of the Barbaric Eastern Mountain Tribes_; Man; Earth Kingdom; Avatar Kyoshi; Anthropology; Author: Gong Yuan (Dean, Ba Sing Se University).

Suffice it to say, it is likely poetic license for Lao Bai to claim that they came for "Wò Ráo's sake," though I have no doubt that what the last Shān-mín warrior's message in the poem captures the gist of that survivor's sentiments.

Lao Bai composed _The Ballad of the Mountain Tribe _fifteen years after the fact, in response to negotiations between the provincial government of Huai and the Fire Nation to submit to a Fire Nation protectorate. His anger at the surrender clearly resonated with the people, both noble and common, in Huai and beyond, otherwise the ballad would not have survived the Dai Li purge that claimed Lao Bai's life two years after its publication.

**Notes on passages:**

[**一**]_ To the West, the Avatar has fled,_ - Accusing the Earth King of abandoning Huai Province alone was likely enough to sentence Lao Bai to death, but this passage, outwardly a lament of Avatar Roku's (presumed) death, subtly accused him of betraying the Earth Kingdom to his known friend, Fire Lord Sozin.  
>The Dai Li declared that such a charge, leveled at <em>any<em>Avatar, was a deadly insult to their founder, Avatar Kyoshi, and heretical speech, thus justifying their execution of the poet.

See: _Fa Shu Shi: Upon which Basis the Secretariat of the Dai Li Takes Action for the Protection of the Earth Kingdom, Volume 56 __–__ "On Heretical Speech and Incorrect Thought"_; Man; Earth Kingdom; Avatar Roku; Law; Legalism; Government; Author: Shang Dong (Grand Secretariat of Ba Sing Se).

[**二**]_ Unnatur'd Fire, their polluted art_- This passage reflects Lao Bai's studies into the new weapons of the Fire Army, which negated the Earth Kingdom's inherent advantage in any land war. The discovery of the Fire Army's use of distilled oil-and-tar incendiaries, which, when mixed with sulfur, niter, and/or quicklime, could burn through leather armor and could not be doused with water, frightened and disgusted him. His letters on the topic clearly state his opinion that the Fire Nation had gone down a path that was tearing them away from the harmonious spirit of the world, and that their perversions of fire and iron into machines of war would lead to the destruction of the world if they were not stopped.

See: _Sojourn Far from Willow Valley_; Man; Second Upheaval [sic] (Avatar Aang, disappearance of); Letters; Poetry; Essays, Critical; Sciences, Chemical; Sciences, Engineering; Author: Lao Bai.

[**三**]_ Give none to them, who slew Sh__ā__n-m__í__n, who trample their honored graves __– _ Lao Bai speaks of the Fire Army's blasting of the sealed Kǒu Pass and the desecration of the graves of fallen warriors while alluding to contemporaneous events. Much as they eliminated the Air Nomads, the Fire Nation hunted down and massacred the Tong-bai Mountain tribes, who, unlike their distant relatives in the southern reaches of the Continent, did not agree to a non-aggression treaty and continued to fight the Fire Army until their annihilation.

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: Inspiration for the song (and tune) is _The Foggy Dew_, performed by Sinead O'Connor & the Chieftains.


	3. Song 03: Song for My Departed Brother

_**Songs of War: Earth -03-**_

* * *

><p><strong>Song for My Departed Brother<strong>

(**Alternate Titles**: _Song to a Fallen Soldier; To My Brother_)  
>[Style:<em>W<em>_ǎ__n-du__ì_]  
>[Origin: Earth Kingdom, circa Avatar Roku]<p>

* * *

><p>My brother has gone before me.<br>Alone, he entered the West Gate.

In the forecourt lies his armor,  
>against the postern rests his sword.<br>Upon the sill-stone his helm sits,  
>under the lintel, his boots stand.<p>

These needless things, he discarded.  
>Alone, I gathered them.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Archivist's Note:<strong> The provenance of _Song for My Departed Brother_ has been a subject of fierce debate between scholars of both the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom. Both sides of the most recent War claim "ownership" of this anonymous memorial poem that became an unofficial elegy for soldiers, no matter what nation they claimed allegiance to.

The first appearance of the song in print was in Ran Yan's anthology _Treatise of Odes, Ancient and Modern_, which would support the Fire Nation claim if not for Ran Yan's forthright notation that the poem had been "collected from a carved memorial tablet" in the "land of Wǎn" and that he was "aggrieved" that the anonymous poet had "likely expired at the hands of [his] countrymen."

See: _Treatise of Odes, Ancient and Modern_(1st Edition); Man; Fire Nation; Avatar Aang (disappearance of); Poetry; Anthology; Author: Ran Yan.

Subsequent editions of the anthology removed the scholar's notation.

**Finder's Note:** That the scholar Ran Yan specified "a carved memorial tablet" in the Earth Kingdom recently conquered by the Fire Nation indicates that the original poet was from the former instead of the latter. For the sake of the accuracy of the records within this archive, this stone was sought out and discovered within a small cemetery high in the Dong-nan Mountains – a site and practice after the traditions of that region. It is thus this finder's conclusion that this song be correctly recorded in the Earth Kingdom archives.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **Ever hear the saying, "History is written by the victors"? ;)**  
><strong>


End file.
